Hello everyone! I've been slacking off on blogging lately. There are so many things that I want to share. We have several projects going on around here that are demanding my time and attention right now, so I've skipped a few Frugal Accomplishments posts.

But, here are some frugal accomplishments for the last two weeks!

​1. Grocery shopping: we spent $11.03 at Aldi, and $27.55 at Kroger. Some of the things I bought at Aldi weren't cheaper than Walmart, so that was a little disappointing. But other things were cheaper, so I suppose it was a wash in the end. At Kroger I bought some fun items at regular price (the canned cinnamon rolls and Reeses), as well as boring items at regular price: the sausage was $2.00 for a pound, and the raisins were also $2.00.

Kroger haul

Aldi haul

Everything else we got at Kroger was a Manager's special!! Our store is renovating, and they have carts and carts full of bargain bin items right now. The brownie mix was $0.49, the sprinkles and tea were both $0.99, the honey was $4.99 per jar. The crushed tomatoes were $0.79 and the evaporated milk was $0.89. I think one of my goals for next year will be to buy more organics and/or avoid buying the most heavily sprayed/GMO-ed items. Ever since getting my bees, I've realized how important it is that we stop spraying so many pesticides and move toward more sustainable conventional farming systems. I'm not saying everybody should quit chemicals cold-turkey, but I'm feeling the pull as a consumer to start "voting with my dollars", even if it's just a few dollars a week.

2.Thrift store: VOA had their 50% off sale. After going to William Sonoma on my birthday, I made a list of all the things I wanted for my "dream kitchen". Even though I love the idea of buying my entire dream kitchen at WS, I can save several hundred dollars by finding those same common kitchen items at thrift stores and garage sales. I already have everything I need in my current kitchen, but I'd like to make upgrades like replacing my plastic serving spoons with wood or stainless steel ones. At VOA I found several of the things on my list: a cookie jar, a tall glass pasta jar, and a lazy susan. All of the items were good quality.

3. ​Free GARAGE SALE! The church around the corner had their semi-annual free garage sale. A couple days before the event, I dropped off a load of things to donate. After the sale, I came home with.... well, probably a few more things than I donated. LOL! Below are some pictures of what I got:

There were so many baby clothes. When the sale first started, people were swarming everywhere and I didn't have the space to methodically go through all of the toddler clothes. After the crowd had died down, I went back to the kids' clothes, and there were still a ton of nice things left! I found 28 shirts/onesies, 14 pairs of pants, 5 pairs of shoes, four pairs of socks and one hat for Baby Girl. This was enough for a whole wardrobe of 2T clothes and all of the shirts she will need in 3T. Because her cloth diapers are so big, I have her wearing 2T-3T leggings already, even though she's only wearing 18 month onesies. If I get her out of diapers by the time she's wearing the 3T shirts, she'll still be able to wear all of the same leggings she is wearing now.

There were also a ton of little kid shoes. I found a pair of shoes/moccasins that she can wear right now, plus pairs in a few sizes up. On a very good day, I can find a pair of leggings for $2.00 ($1.00 at the half price sale) at a thrift store; same deal for shoes and other clothing. $1.00 per piece on a very, very good day. I'm guessing I saved over $50.00 by finding so many baby clothes at the free garage sale.

In addition to the baby clothes, I also got three packs of stationery, a flag-shaped cookie cutter, highlighter, board with hooks for clothing, five cookbooks, seven other books, candles, and two beautiful glass candlesticks.

More free books for my personal library!

4. Gardening: I harvested basil, mint, beets, peppers, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes from the garden. The tomatoes are REALLY dying down, and my pepper plants were a sorry disappointment this year. So far I've harvested about four peppers, total. As part of my "stretch the gardening season" experiment (and secretly as a last-ditch effort to grow a few more peppers) we made cold frames for the garden. The polycarbonate sheet was $40.00; we cut it in half to use for two frames. The additional lumber used for the sides was all scrap, so the total cost for each frame was $20.00. This is going to be part of my "stretch the gardening season" experiment. I don't think I'll be able to save $40.00 worth of grocery money this year, but hopefully by the end of next year I'll have grown enough lettuce, spinach, radishes and other crops to have recouped the money.

Part of my purple basil harvest.

I also did some research on other methods of stretching the season. Apparently you can just cover root crops with straw bales during the winter, and then dig vegetables up as needed (until the ground freezes too hard, anyway). I'm going to try that with my sweet potatoes and beets. I also plan on picking any green tomatoes before frost, so they can ripen indoors.

5. Cooking: I made pesto with the massive basil harvest. I also strained and bottled some white wine that I made with free grapes from our orchard. I've designated Friday as "baking day" around here, so last Friday I made some sour cream cookies from one of my vintage cookbooks. They were good, but there are other cookie recipes I like better.

6. Cans: Baby and I collected cans on various bike rides. We also returned the cans and earned around $8.00.

Also, I just wanted to give a big thanks to those of you who answered the 10 questions in my September newsletter. It was SO fun to sit down and read about your favorite books, movies, music, what you drive, etc. Several of the answers overlapped, and I could see what we all had in common. Most of us are homemakers, we like the Bible and T-shirts, and Little Women is pretty popular. LOL! Now I just wish I could meet all of you in person!

Please consider getting your sweet potatoes out of the ground! They are tropical plants, and don't like cold at all! II keep mine in buckets of boxes tucked in a corner somewhere dim or dark, probably in the 50-70 degree range. They aren't remotely related to white potatoes and require very different storage. Mine last over a year this way! We grew 105 pounds this year in two plastic kiddie pools and three Rubbermaid totes. Love our sweets!

Reply

Bethany

10/6/2018 06:19:45 am

Thanks for the tip, Norene! I guess I will be digging sweet potatoes soon, then. Growing them in kiddie pools is also a fantastic idea. We have a pool left from when I had ducks... it's not quite good enough to hold water anymore, so maybe that's what I can do with it!